Wednesday Evening Business Brief

January 23, 2013, 5:12 PM

Technology stocks have driven Wall Street to a higher close. Strong earnings reports from Google and IBM led the charge. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 66 points to end at 13,779 today. Without the boost it got from IBM, the Dow would have closed flat. The S&P 500 index edged up two points and the Nasdaq composite rose 10 points.

The price of oil has declined the most this year on reports that the amount of crude moving through a key pipeline to the Gulf Coast had been cut in half. Benchmark oil dropped $1.45, or 1.5 percent, to finish at $95.23 per barrel today on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It's the first decline of more than 1 percent since Dec. 21.

Apple's profit surge halted in the latest quarter, as a flood of new products like the iPhone 5 meant high start-up costs for new production lines. Apple posted net income for the October to December quarter that was flat with the year before. Net income in the fiscal first quarter was $13.1 billion, or $13.81 per share. That still beat expectations. Revenue was $54.5 billion, up 18 percent from a year ago.

Netflix's Internet video service has added 2 million U.S. subscribers during the final three months of the year to produce an unexpected profit for the company. Investors' have shown recent confidence in Netflix, whose volatile stock had surged by more than 30 percent since early December. Netflix earned nearly $8 million, or 13 cents per share. Revenue climbed 8 percent to $945 million.

Obama administration officials are struggling to defend their initial statements that the Boeing 787 is safe. They're promising a transparent probe of mishaps involving the aircraft's batteries. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says the Federal Aviation Administration is working as quickly as possible to find the cause of the problems.